


Jumja Lovin'

by jazzypizzaz



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Awkward Flirting, F/M, Innuendo, Jumja Sticks (Star Trek), New love, Shyness, sweet sweet fluffy goodness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 16:32:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14116404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzypizzaz/pseuds/jazzypizzaz
Summary: Rom is shy about his new relationship with Leeta.  She wants him to lick her jumja.





	Jumja Lovin'

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Rom and Leeta sharing a jumja stick.](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/366717) by ferengifangirl. 



Rom meanders out from the Promenade down towards the habitat ring. He’s fresh off an Engineering shift that ran late, and head full of dampening coils and pylons and stembolts, he's not paying attention to his surroundings.

A little too late, he notices Leeta.

With a squeak and a flail, he launches himself behind a column to hide. She's only a couple meters from him, leaning against a wall out of the way of the hustle and bustle of evening pedestrian traffic. Hopefully her tiny (delicate, beautiful, precious) ears didn’t hear him approach.

It's been a week since the night she almost left his life forever with that Dr. Zimmerman. A week since their first date, since he declared his feelings and she returned them.

A week since that first passionate kiss.

And every time Rom sees her, his heart threatens to beat out of his chest and his lobes are on fire and his stomach feels full of swamp moths. Which, to be fair, isn't that different from how he felt before they got together, except that this time there's the added anxiety that he can't help but wonder if she's going to regret staying on the station because of him.

Sure, she'd been very clear that this was her decision. That as nice as having her own cafe would be, it’s a risky endeavor, and besides, the diverse customer base on Deep Space Nine allows her to pursue her sociological interests in a way she couldn’t elsewhere.

She’d also been very clear that she was staying in large part because of Rom. Because, inexplicably, she _loves_ Rom.

Yet whenever they’ve tried meeting up since, they haven’t been able to recapture that first ecstatic, carefree date. In her luminous company, Rom finds himself feeling like his tongue has a wire which has disconnected it from his brain, not that his brain would be helpful since _it_ feels full of loose bolts. He can feel the countdown until she realizes that he’s the hapless idiot Quark always says he is, and no, she doesn’t want to be with him after all.

And that kiss… What a kiss it was! Has anyone ever been kissed like that in the history of the universe?

 _Of course_ , that nagging voice (which sounds suspiciously like Quark) inside Rom’s head says, _that’s also what you thought when you kissed Prinadora the first time_ , _and that didn’t turn out so well did it?_

Rom couldn’t stand it if it turns out Leeta secretly thought his breath stank of swamp gas and he kissed like a slug, and that first time was just a fluke, however unlikely it seems.

A few delightful notes of musical laughter dance in Rom’s direction, shaking him from these cowering thoughts.

“Rooooom,” Leeta singsongs. Like one would when trying to coax a grub larvae out of its hole. “What are you doing, Rom?”

Rom slowly peeks his head out from behind the column.

Leeta has an amused smile on her face, her lips slightly red from eating the jumja stick she’s holding in her left hand.

She’s so beautiful Rom could cry.

“Hi-hiding,” Rom says, before he can think better of it, struck dumb by the sight of her. ( _Or perhaps dumb in general_ , the Quark voice says in his head.)

“Why?” Leeta says. Her eyes are wide and curious, as if she really does want to know and won’t judge him for it.

Rom shrugs, but doesn’t elaborate.

“Walk me to my quarters,” she says. “Unless you’re busy?”

He shakes his head and follows her down the hall. They walk in silence for a moment.

“You’re so quiet. You don’t have to be scared of me, silly.” Leeta smiles, teasing.

Rom shrugs again.

At his continued silence, she turns her attention back to her jumja stick while they walk, licking a long stripe up the side of it. There’s a droplet of the juice on the corner of her mouth that Rom wishes he could wipe away for her.

“Mmm,” Leeta says moaning as she laps at the long dripping cylinder of sweet juice.

The noise vibrates in Rom’s lobes, sending a tingle down his spine. If only _he_ could be the one that makes her feel that way. And what would her tiny pink tongue feel like on his -- ?

“I just love sucking on a delicious treat at the end of a long day,” Leeta says, moaning in delight as she licks. “Don’t you?

Rom tears his gaze away from her mouth, almost tripping over his feet. Blood pounds in his ears.

They’re now outside Leeta’s door, but she makes no move to enter, so they just stand there in the hall.

The silence has now morphed from merely awkward to uncomfortable, but Rom can’t think for the swarm of nervous moths in his stomach and buzzing tingle now in his lobes. ( _Or maybe he can’t think at all._ Damn that voice.)

“Well say _something_ ,” Leeta whines. She’s trying to play it off as light-hearted teasing still, but there’s a pout forming on her mouth. Her mouth that still has a giant droplet of red jumja on them that Rom still wishes he could clean off for her. “Unless you’re tired of me already." 

Horrified at the implication, Rom jerks up from staring at his feet.

"Unless you don’t want to be my boyfriend anymore...”

Then a warmness spreads in his chest, at that word, _boyfriend_.  He opens his mouth. There are a thousand compliments on her beauty and worships of her goodness on the tip of his tongue, but nothing comes out except a long "uuuuuuh."

Leeta’s pout deepens to a frown, voice now rising in anger. “Unless you didn’t mean it when you said you love --”

“I LOVE jumja sticks!” Rom blurts out, finally, in confusion and frustration at his tied-tongue.  Then, mortified, the color drains from Rom’s face as Leeta stares at him a moment.

“And?” She says, nodding as if to egg him on.

“And I…” Rom draws up what remains of his courage. _She said he was her boyfriend!_   “You're the most beauuutiful female ever and -- ” He mumbles, all in a rush, then ducks his head.  Barely audible, he continues. "And I love you."

“See? That wasn’t so hard. I love you too, silly.” To Rom’s great surprise, it sounds like Leeta even means it. To his even greater surprise, she giggles, and the tension is broken. “Well go ahead then, have some!”

Rom stares at her, mouth hanging open dumbly. ( _As if his mouth could do anything else,_ the Quark voice says, but Rom squashes that back -- _she said she loves him!_ )

“Uuhhhhh… Have what?”

She thrusts the jumja stick towards him, and Rom catches on.

She’s holding it about waist high (hers), so he cranes his neck down, hunching over so he can reach it with his mouth. In this awkward position, half-bent in front of Leeta, he starts lapping eagerly at the offered jumja, like that Cardassian vole who found Quark’s bucket of experimental hooch in the storage closet.

Leeta starts giggling again. He shoots a smile up at her as he licks, dripping with jumja. She giggles louder at the mess on his face.

“You’re so silly!” Leeta gasps.

Too late, Rom realizes she’s most likely laughing _at_ him. She had been holding out the jumja stick for him to grab, with his hands not his mouth.

“O-oh,” he stutters. Face red both from smeared jumja and from the blood rushing back into it in his embarrassment, Rom straightens back up. “S-s-soooooorry.”

He moves to take the stick as intended, but Leeta pops it back in then out of her own mouth instead.

“Don’t be sorry. It was cute.” She smiles reassuringly at him, and he smiles back, relieved. She tilts her head suddenly, pretending to think. She affects an exaggerated pout. “You know… now I’ve got all this jumja juice all over my hands, and oh!”

She reaches forward and with a delicate finger wipes a deliberate streak of jumja across his cheek. “And would you look at that? It’s all over your cheek!” Leeta bats her eyes at him and Rom’s knees go rubbery for a moment. She lowers her voice, looking at him meaningfully, “Maybe _someone_ should help clean you up.”

“Uuuuuum,” Rom says, thinking. He tilts his cheek forward shyly. “Y-you?”

She gives him a sultry gaze then leans down and licks the juice off his cheek. He closes his eyes.

Her tongue is soft and wet and _perfect_. Just like he remembered from their kiss a week ago.

Rom whimpers.

Then suddenly, there’s something soft and warm on his lips. He squeaks a bit, then realizes it’s Leeta _, kissing him_.

"It's all over your mouth!"  She giggles and kisses him again, this time swiping her tongue into his.

Rom whimpers again, pitched lower this time, then leans into it. Their mouths alternate hot and cold from jumja. It’s strange and wonderful and full of sugar. He kisses her back long and sweet.

Unbidden, Rom’s larynx muscles start vibrating, emitting a low noise. He’s purring.

Leeta whispers in wonder, as if it’s a secret, “Is that _you_?”

Rom follows her upwards with his mouth as she pulls away, not wanting the kiss to end. He flutters his eyes open, now whimpering while still purring.

Leeta laughing fondly at the sound of him so pleased, but still wanting more. She reaches out to give an affectionate stroke of the lobes. Rom about melts with relief and leans into her touch, his purring deepening.

Leeta hastily retracts her hand to cover her mouth in fake surprise, and Rom whines at the loss. 

“Oh my!” she says. “Now you’ve got _jumja_ all over your _lobes_! Whatever shall we do!”

“Uh.” Rom tilts his head at her and swallows any lingering nerves.  He tiptoes up to suck off that stubborn droplet of jumja from the corner of Leeta's mouth. “Yooooou. Could clean them for me? Uh. Please?”

”And here I thought you’d never ask.” Leeta winks and pulls him into her quarters.

And so, they reconnect, carefree and easy with each other once again. One thing leads to another, and before long Rom is lobes deep in licking up _her_ juice, tangy and clear. The jumja itself spreads into a mess all over them, and they both lap it up, giggling and purring.

He can’t believe he was ever nervous. He can’t believe he ever doubted her. He can’t believe he doubted what they have together.

(Though, come to think of it, he hasn’t heard that nagging Quark voice since. Except for when it’s _actually_ his brother.)

For years and years after, Rom and Leeta’s love for each other flows freely between them, always as sticky sweet as jumja.


End file.
